Election humble pie: we know nothing of the future and almost as little about the past
This is a failure of guts and brains, of America’s pundit class, of everybody who tries to understand US politics.
Humble pie is a dish best served warm on a dark morning in what suddenly feels like the bleakest time of the year. There’s a lot of this pie to go around. I’m glad I baked plenty, though I intend to eat most of it myself because, clearly, this is all about me.
Sure, if you successfully called this election, you don’t get a piece. You get a “Congratulations!” and this novelty commemorative pen. Well played and all that. But the rest of us: tuck in! I’m chewing my first slice with grim abandon because this failure is so personal. It’s profound, too. If it seemed obvious why Trump would win in 2016, it’s not been so obvious why he would win in 2024. This is a failure of guts and brains, of America’s pundit class, of everybody who tries to understand US politics.
I wrote last week that even if the race felt close and Republicans seemed overly optimistic, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Harris wasn’t ahead by a few points. It was, as I said, a leap of faith because I didn’t want to contemplate what the alternative would mean.
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